Search results for

Congress recently repealed a set of rules governing repetitive motion in the workplace -- rules put in place during the final days of the Clinton administration. Congress did that by invoking a 1996 law that allows the review of federal regulations within the first months after they are imposed by the executive branch. Now some members of Congress want to use the same power to review some of President Bush's rules changes, specifically as they apply to abortion. NPR's David Welna reports.

Alan Cheuse reviews Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham. It's the story of runaway black youths in the great American West of the 1870s. The book is published by Doubleday.

NPR's Peter Overby reports on the first amendment to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill that has passed the Senate. By a 70-30 vote, lawmakers approved a proposal that would help level the playing field for candidates who run against rich opponents who finance their own campaigns.

After a five-day struggle to save it, a 40-story-high oil rig sank today off the coast of Brazil with 400,000 gallons of crude oil and diesel fuel on board. Last Thursday, 10 people died when gas explosions damaged the rig. Now officials are trying to prevent an environmental disaster. Noah Adams talks with reporter Tom Gibb.

Noah Adams speaks with Kathleen Cambor, author of In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden. Her book is a novel based on the events surrounding the Johnstown flood in 1889. The flood claimed 2,200 lives after a dam burst on Memorial Day weekend. The book traces some of the complex social tensions between the residents of Johnstown and the wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists who'd built country homes nearby and on whose land the defective dam stood. The book is published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

NPR's Steve Inskeep profiles Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. The first-term Republican, who is considered a close friend of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and endorsed him during last year's presidential primaries, is pushing a campaign-finance reform measure that has become the vehicle for those opposed to the McCain-Feingold bill. Hagel's measure, which limits -- but does not eliminate -- soft money contributions, is tacitly backed by President Bush. McCain calls Hagel's bill a "poison pill" that would not change the system in any meaningful way.

NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from Cumbria in Northern England, the region hardest hit by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Farmers are challenging the government's insistence on slaughtering all animals within two miles of infected sites. With "Keep Out" signs posted throughout the English countryside, the outbreak has caused huge losses in the tourism industry, as well. The government has deployed army troops to help dispose of the animal carcasses that have been piling up.

More than armed insurrections, kidnappings or plane crashes, it's the trip across town that often strikes fear in the hearts of foreign correspondents. This is especially true in Latin America, where creative driving is a way of life. But NPR's reporter in South America, Martin Kaste, says that Brazil has become the surprising exception.

Commander Scott Waddle, skipper of the USS Greeneville, stunned a Navy court of inquiry in Hawaii today by taking the stand to testify without immunity. He is taking full responsibility for the sub's deadly collision with a Japanese fishing trawler. Waddle and his attorney had said he would not testify in the inquiry unless assured that his answers would not be used against him in a court martial or other criminal proceeding. But in a dramatic opening statement, Waddle said he wanted to be heard by the families of the nine killed in the Feb. 9 collision. Linda Wertheimer talks with NPR's Andy Bowers who's at the hearing in Pearl Harbor.

Commentator and high school junior Thessaly La Force says it's still pretty easy for a teenager to keep her life a secret from her parents. In addition to feeling she has too much independence, she thinks kids only tell other kids their closest secrets because it's too big a risk to tell an adult.